Five words; a mere two phrases suffice to sum up the diaclog
between a growing chorus of American citizens, European citizens, trade unions,
academia, an ever-shifting panoply of online forums, and Israel. Brussels, as
the personification of what's perceived by many Israelis as a mainly European
bias against the Jew-ish state, pouts.

To some, the EU capital, and by the same token, most EU
capitals, hardly deserve mention unless disparaged alongside the likes of
Tehran, Beirut, Ramallah, or Kabul. The growing isolation of the country is
making it harder for Israel to constructively engage with the outside world. Its
reactions have been defensive, and even harsh to the point of seeming entirely
at variance with non-Israeli interpretations of the facts. Israel, in other
words, is fast becoming a fortress, not just to its immediate neighbors, but to
the world at large.

Asking of Israel to end the occupation invokes a broad
consensus, even among the Israeli public, that the military control of the
majority Palestinian West Bank and East-Jerusalem, and the closing off of the
ghetto-like territory of Gaza by sea, land, and air, must stop. It stands to
reason that people be ruled by (the same) people, and for the (the same) people,
i.e. by their own elected bodies and administrations, not by means of verbal commands
barked at gunpoint from an armored car, or leaflets twirling from the sky.

"Anti-Semite" evokes the idea that by withdrawing to the
borders of '67, Israel will be wide open to Arab tanks rumbling in from
Baghdad, Damascus, Riyadh, and Amman, or additional Palestinian claims for land
and attacks, which is exactly what proponents of Palestinian rights are purported
to have in mind. Europe does not respect Israel's right to exist, Israel itself
or for that matter, Jews in general.

Alas, the latter two arguably, are true, at least where
European governments are concerned. They, tasked with the provision of abundant
energy for rebounding industry and populations after the calamitous Second
World War, didn't blink to advance the hapless survivors of its concentration
camps on the great Middle Eastern chessboard. Israel could count on unquestionable
support, in exchange for the odd hit job whenever Arab political developments
or constellations threatened the steady, cheap flow of hydrocarbons.

European, and later, American governments came to
instrumentalize Israel as a client-state, to be called upon whenever a waterway
needed to be kept open, or an Arab potentate's Soviet-built air force culled.
In exchange they made sure their guns-for-hire avoided censure whenever, in
pursuit of the aforementioned goals, a few minor transgressions occurred. Western
public opinion meanwhile became anesthetized by the prevailing rhetoric of on
the one hand a special relationship, religious affinity between Jews, and
Christians who had quite a bit to make up for, and the bloodthirsty nature of Arab
autocracies, and Arabs in general on the other.

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This special relationship seems slowly but surely to be expiring.
Creeping anti-Islamic sentiments in Europe hardly attest to a lack of
anti-Semitism, but the current vociferous criticism of Israel is to be grounded
elsewhere.

First of all oil production, if not yet on an easily
recognizable net decline, is about to peak, or more likely, has done so already.
While Chinese buyers still eagerly prospect mainly African and Central-Asian
producers, the black gold has lost some of its sheen, and is no longer the
commodity of the future. More specifically, the share of Middle Eastern crude
in the global mix has dropped considerably in recent times.

Secondly, as the Gulf wars of '91 and '03-to-now have shown,
direct Israeli participation in maintaining the regional status quo is no
longer necessary. On the contrary, Israel's campaigns against Lebanon in '06,
and the Palestinians on numerous occasions, steeped in the strategy of
deterrence, or the infliction of massive, disproportionate damage, have proved
tangential to American prestige, and its ability to conduct its affairs in the
Arab arena on its own pace and terms. Moreover, America's wish to engender a
broad Arab coalition against the new Iranian bogeyman, is stifled, among other
factors, by the lack of an Israeli response to the Saudi peace plan proposed
more than four years ago. In short, America's military leadership, echoed in
Europe, increasingly views the former stalwart as a strategic liability.

Israeli policy makers didn't initiate this wretched state of
events. They engaged in the quid-pro-quo out of necessity, but the grand
bargain that took shape after 1948 is slowly but surely on the wane. This
process cannot be stopped, only managed well, or managed badly. This is the
strategic choice that the government of Israel faces: to recognize the steady
shift of a broader constellation which is out of its control to change, and act
in its own best interest. Neither the Israeli leadership itself, European
governments shouting, or worse, cloaked in horrifying silence on the sidelines,
and those on America's Christian right who affect kindness toward the people of
God, instill much confidence. As any taxi driver in any city in any country of
the world will attest; "Politics is the problem."

The status quo is on the way out regardless of the rhetoric
in Jerusalem, Brussels, Ramallah, Tehran, or Washington. The old days are not
going to come back regardless of whether Barack Obama gets a second term, or
whether the Iranian regime survives another acrimonious election cycle. Neither
increasing vandalism against synagogues in Europe, anti-Muslim discrimination,
incitement in Ramallah, nor a mosque torched near Nablus will profoundly affect
the eclipse of the oil era. They are selective stories to fill newspapers, cited
in varied apportionments according to inclination. They are the footnotes and
analogies employed by weak leaders afraid to utter an encompassing fact.

Tom Kenis (33), graduated MA in Middle-East studies and International Relations, has studied Arabic in Cairo, and worked for three years in the occupied Palestinian territories. He currently works for Channel Research, a consultancy active in the (more...)